AcerAspireTC-885-UR12trying to upgrade my PC mainly for gaming,what type of graphics card compatible

TC885UR12
TC885UR12 Member Posts: 4 New User
edited September 29 in Aspire and Veriton Desktops

I have been almost completely unable to find any resources online regarding what SSD, GPU, RAM, or power supply would be compatible with this model. All of the hardware is stock and the PC was purchased about 5 years ago. It would be greatly appreciated if anyone could tell me what type of motherboard I have and what I could do to upgrade my computer to play games. As well as if I would need a new CPU or anything else, right now my PC runs fairly slow, and it can be laborious to even open Task Manager despite having factory reset it and scanned for viruses' multiple times

My current stats are:

-8th Gen Intel Core I5 Processor 8400

-Intel UHD Graphics 630

-1TB HHD Hard Drive

-8GB DDR4 Memory

I am trying to upgrade my PC mainly for gaming, but I don't know what type of graphics card would be compatible with my measly 300w power supply. I do not have much experience with computer hardware, and I am looking for helpful resources on the matter.

Thank you.

[Edited the topic title to include the topic issue.]

Best Answer

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    edited September 29 Answer ✓

    Those last four digits in the model number are used to define the various options installed from the factory. Just knowing that you have a TC-885 is enough with the rest of the info you provided. Your biggest problem as related to system performance is as suggested the HDD. Upgrading to use a SSD instead will give you a much larger difference than anything else you can do. Your motherboard has an M.2 slot for an NVMe drive, #8 in this diagram:

    image.png

    You would want to purchase the drive, I'd suggest either 1TB or 2TB, and install it in that slot. If you look up in the diagram from that slot there are two studs for mounting, the close one for a 2242 drive and the farther for a 2280. The 2280 drives are more available. Once you have the drive installed, boot up and run a drive cloning software package (I used the free version of Macrium Reflect for the last one I did) to clone the HDD to the SSD. Next reboot into the BIOS and enable your boot menu, save and exit. Hit the F10 key at boot to get the boot menu and choose the SSD as your boot device. In just a few seconds you'll be up and running on the new drive. Once you have booted on it, it will be the default. Also, once you are comfortable that everything is running right you can use Disk Management to wipe all partitions off the HDD then create a new data partition that uses the whole drive. Use that for storage of large files like videos and music.

    Now, the next upgrade will be for memory. You currently have 8GB of memory, so likely two 4GB sticks. Most modern versions of Windows really prefer 16GB or 32GB of memory and your system maxes out at 32GB. Yours uses either 2400MHz or 2666MHz memory, in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB or 16GB sticks. Two 8GB gives you 16GB of memory, two 16GB gives you 32GB of memory. Putting memory in pairs gives a performance increase over having single sticks, though singles do work. Choosing between 16GB and 32GB is mostly defined by your pocketbook, since 32GB costs very close to double the cost of 16GB.

    The final upgrade for gaming is a GPU card. What can be used there is gated by the power that is available. The TC-885 models came with a 220W, a 300W or a 500W power supply. Since yours doesn't have a discrete GPU card you likely have the 300W, but it might be 220W. Luckily the PSU for this model is the old style ATX form factor, so replacing it with a larger one is pretty easy. With a 220W supply you have to replace it to use almost all GPU card, with a 300W you have a limited choice of cards to use, with a 500W or larger things open up a lot and it then becomes more a factor of how much you can spend on the GPU.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

Answers

  • Puraw
    Puraw ACE, Member Posts: 13,403 Trailblazer
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/713322/aceraspiretc-885-ur12trying-to-upgrade-my-pc-mainly-for-gaming-what-type-of-graphics-card-compatible

    Hi, you can upgrade RAM to 16GB by adding another 8GB UDIMM Acer Aspire TC-885-UR12 | Memory RAM & SSD Upgrades | Crucial EU or if you have 2x4GB installed replace these for a 2x8GB, 16 GB kit from Crucial: DDR4-3200 • CL=22 • NON-ECC • UDIMM • 288-pin • 1.2V • 2Rx8/1Rx8/1Rx16 • PC4-25600

    See this link for some additional upgrades like CPU and SSD: Ways I can upgrade my Aspire TC-885? — Acer Community

  • Larryodie
    Larryodie Member Posts: 1,682 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon

    More Ram BUT most definitely a Solid State Hard Drive,

  • TC885UR12
    TC885UR12 Member Posts: 4 New User

    Thank you both I really appreciate the help. All of the information I could find was related to TC-885-UA91 Desktops or some other slightly different variation of mine. In videos I saw of people doing replacements on similar designs, it appears that they would install additional memory in a slot directly beside the power connector to the motherboard but my motherboard does not appear to have this same connector.

    If anyone could show me where the upgraded SSD would be connected to my motherboard that would be appreciated, also would I be able to use the upgraded SSD in tandem with the old HHD or should I just scrap the HHD. I don't have any information I need to transfer from my current hard drive.

    Additionally, would I need to upgrade my power supply to be able to run a better non-integrated graphics card or is 300w enough?

  • Larryodie
    Larryodie Member Posts: 1,682 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon

    A search of this forum of

    TC-885-UR12

    may be worthwhile or a picture of the mother board.

  • Larryodie
    Larryodie Member Posts: 1,682 Community Aficionado WiFi Icon

    If you have a M.2 NVMe SSD slot then that is your ticket.

    Yes you can then use your old sluggish drive as a data drive but boot via the M.2, as it's lightning fast,

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    edited September 29 Answer ✓

    Those last four digits in the model number are used to define the various options installed from the factory. Just knowing that you have a TC-885 is enough with the rest of the info you provided. Your biggest problem as related to system performance is as suggested the HDD. Upgrading to use a SSD instead will give you a much larger difference than anything else you can do. Your motherboard has an M.2 slot for an NVMe drive, #8 in this diagram:

    image.png

    You would want to purchase the drive, I'd suggest either 1TB or 2TB, and install it in that slot. If you look up in the diagram from that slot there are two studs for mounting, the close one for a 2242 drive and the farther for a 2280. The 2280 drives are more available. Once you have the drive installed, boot up and run a drive cloning software package (I used the free version of Macrium Reflect for the last one I did) to clone the HDD to the SSD. Next reboot into the BIOS and enable your boot menu, save and exit. Hit the F10 key at boot to get the boot menu and choose the SSD as your boot device. In just a few seconds you'll be up and running on the new drive. Once you have booted on it, it will be the default. Also, once you are comfortable that everything is running right you can use Disk Management to wipe all partitions off the HDD then create a new data partition that uses the whole drive. Use that for storage of large files like videos and music.

    Now, the next upgrade will be for memory. You currently have 8GB of memory, so likely two 4GB sticks. Most modern versions of Windows really prefer 16GB or 32GB of memory and your system maxes out at 32GB. Yours uses either 2400MHz or 2666MHz memory, in 2GB, 4GB, 8GB or 16GB sticks. Two 8GB gives you 16GB of memory, two 16GB gives you 32GB of memory. Putting memory in pairs gives a performance increase over having single sticks, though singles do work. Choosing between 16GB and 32GB is mostly defined by your pocketbook, since 32GB costs very close to double the cost of 16GB.

    The final upgrade for gaming is a GPU card. What can be used there is gated by the power that is available. The TC-885 models came with a 220W, a 300W or a 500W power supply. Since yours doesn't have a discrete GPU card you likely have the 300W, but it might be 220W. Luckily the PSU for this model is the old style ATX form factor, so replacing it with a larger one is pretty easy. With a 220W supply you have to replace it to use almost all GPU card, with a 300W you have a limited choice of cards to use, with a 500W or larger things open up a lot and it then becomes more a factor of how much you can spend on the GPU.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • TC885UR12
    TC885UR12 Member Posts: 4 New User
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1300151#Comment_1300151

    Thank you so much this has really helped me, I have gone ahead and ordered a new 600w power supply, two OLOY DDR4 RAM 8GB 3600 MHz 288-Pin sticks, and a T-Force CARDEA Z440 1TB PCIe Gen4x4 M.2 2280 Gaming SSD.

    I am still looking to get a new GPU and I've been considering a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti because of the price and performance reviews I have seen of it. Either way, I'm sure I will see a large performance upgrade over my old 300w power supply, HHD, and single stick of 8GB RAM.

    Once again thank you all so much this has helped me out immensely.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer
    edited September 30

    That is the wrong memory. Likely those are XMP memory sticks and will run at their base JEDEC speed, 2133MHz, rather than the needed 2666MHz or 2400MHz. That will mean it's slower than it should be. Cancel the order or return the parts and buy the correct speed, 2666MHz.

    The SSD will work fine, but not at the rated speed. It's a PCIe 4.0 drive and your slot is PCIe 3.0. It will run at the 3.0 speeds, about half of what it is rated for.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.
  • TC885UR12
    TC885UR12 Member Posts: 4 New User
    https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1300362#Comment_1300362

    I'm looking to instead get "OLOy DDR4 RAM 32GB (2x16GB) 2666 MHz CL19 1.2V 288-Pin Desktop Gaming UDIMM ()MD4U162619DJDA) Frequency : 2666 MHz CL19-19-19-43"

    These don't have any mention of being XMP memory but to be honest I'm not sure of the difference. Since they're free returns I won't worry too much about it and I may buy both to test each out.

    Do you know if the SSD will still perform at the maximum capabilities of my current CPU and motherboard? Because that is also a part that I have no problem spending the money on as I will certainly continue to upgrade other parts of my desktop in the future and wouldn't mind being able to keep the SSD I have for a longer time. But I would like to make sure I'm not screwing myself by not having a compatible PCIe SSD.

  • billsey
    billsey ACE Posts: 34,234 Trailblazer

    Yes, that memory looks like it should work as expected. All memory supports the JEDEC specification, which among other things sets the speed it can run at. Some memory also supports one the XMP specifications, which allows it to be overclock by some amount. They can use cheaper memory, due to the lower base speed, yet advertise the maximum XMP overclock speed. XMP is usually only supported on gaming rigs, so it can be very confusing for end users.

    The SSD will run at the maximum speed supported by your chipset, in this case the PCIe 3.0 spec. It's likely not worth spending extra to get a PCIe 4.0 spec drive to put in, unless it's the same cost or lower than the cost for a 3.0.

    Click on "Like" if you find my answer useful or click on "Yes" if it answers your question.

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